Sir Keir Starmer insists he is ‘trustworthy’ – as new voter offer compared with abandoned leadership pledges
Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he can be trusted to deliver his six pledges to voters – despite abandoning many of the promises that saw him elected Labour leader.
In an interview with Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, Sir Keir repeatedly defended his decision to “adjust” some of the 10 pledges he made to party members when seeking to succeed Jeremy Corbyn following Labour’s disastrous 2019 general election result.
The Labour leader said: “When the facts change, the circumstances change. Good leaders know you have to adapt and change with it.”
The Labour leader was speaking following a major pre-election event in Essex, where he set out the “first steps” of a Labour government before the public heads to the polls.
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The six targets, which have been compared to the pledge card Sir Tony Blair put to voters before the 1997 general election, are to deliver economic stability, cut NHS waiting lists, crack down on anti-social behaviour, recruit 6,500 new teachers, launch a new border security command and set up publicly-owned Great British Energy.
Sir Keir said the programme was “going to be hard” to achieve, adding that the public could expect to see the promises materialise within two terms of a Labour government.
The promises have also been compared to the 10 pledges Sir Keir made when he was seeking to become leader – many of which have now been diluted or abandoned.
Among the promises he made in the 2020 leadership election that have since been scaled back are bringing back free tuition and nationalising key public utilities.
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What are Labour’s six pledges?
‘Junked pretty much every pledge’
Asked whether he was “trustworthy” given he had “junked pretty much every pledge you were elected Labour leader on”, Sir Keir replied: “You’ll know that for each of the 10 pledges, there’s about two or three sitting under them.
“That’s about 30 commitments, of which a few have been adjusted. The vast majority are in place, but I accept that some of them have been adjusted.”
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Keeping lid on promises now may serve Labour well in future
What are Labour’s pledges for government?
He drew comparisons with Liz Truss – who survived just 44 days as prime minister after her economic strategy unravelled – saying: “I think the public might be less trusting than you suggest of someone who says, ‘well, I said I’d do this, the economy has now been damaged, but I’m going to do it anyway, even though we can’t afford it’.
“I honestly don’t think that builds trust and confidence because the public know the circumstances have changed.”
‘No clear, measurable targets’
While the pledges have been seen as an expansion of the five “missions” Sir Keir laid out last year, he nevertheless faced questions that his new set of promises lacked the specificity of those promised by Sir Tony nearly three decades ago.
Rigby highlighted to Sir Keir how the former Labour prime minister promised to cut class sizes to 30 or under and cut NHS waiting lists by 100,000.
“When I look at yours, it’s economic stability, new border security, set up GB Energy,” she said.
“There’s no clear, measurable targets. Only one number on it, only one with the teachers. It’s vague enough so that you can’t be seen to break promises.
“It’s shifty isn’t it?”
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‘Not going to make a promise I don’t think I can deliver’
The Labour leader pointed to the fact he was promising 40,000 new appointments and to recruit 6,500 teachers and denied he was “under-promising”.
“I’m not going to make a promise before an election, which I don’t think I can deliver after the election,” he said.
“I think the public in the last 14 years had far too much of people who say before an election they’ll deliver everything, and afterwards they don’t. We have to break that pattern.
“So that means I have to be clear now and say there are some things I can do, there are some things I can’t do. I want to say that before the election so that I can level with the public.”
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Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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